


A Man In Uniform

by PrincexofxFlowers



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Sheith if you squint, klance, mentions of Shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7518095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincexofxFlowers/pseuds/PrincexofxFlowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith shakes his head, an exasperated huff escaping his lips before he finally takes a drink of wine. He pulls a face at it and sits it down closer to Lance’s side of their patch of roof. “No I mean… do you wonder what it would be like if… if we weren’t at war. If we could go out into space just cause we could, without having to worry about fighting the Galra.”</p><p>Lance moves his gaze from the numerous stars above them and settles his eyes on his friend. He’s quiet for a long moment before he speaks. “We haven’t been able to do that since the Kerberos mission. Going out to space just for the heck of it is what got us in this war in the first place, Keith.”</p><p>---</p><p>AU where the Kerberos mission sparked a war between Zarkon and Earth and so the Garrison geared more towards Military excursions into space than exploration. Also Shiro wasn't on the Kerberos mission and Keith and Lance got over their rival thing a while ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man In Uniform

“Hey Lance?”

“Yeah?” Lance takes a swig of wine- which tastes all the better for the fact that they’d nabbed it from the Captain’s quarters- before passing the bottle to Keith. Keith takes it but doesn't drink.

“Do you ever just… look up at the stars and wonder?”

Lance snorts. “Wonder about what? When the next attack will come?”

Keith shakes his head, an exasperated huff escaping his lips before he finally takes a drink of wine. He pulls a face at it and sits it down closer to Lance’s side of their patch of roof. “No I mean… do you wonder what it would be like if… if we weren’t at war. If we could go out into space just cause we could, without having to worry about fighting the Galra.”

Lance moves his gaze from the numerous stars above them and settles his eyes on his friend. He’s quiet for a long moment before he speaks. “We haven’t been able to do that since the Kerberos mission. Going out to space just for the heck of it is what got us in this war in the first place, Keith.”

Keith slumps back a little, his eyes trailing slowly down from the sky, across the horizon, and to the toes of his boots. “I know…”

Lance takes a large gulp of wine, the sensation suddenly bitter with something that tastes like guilt. “If we could go out… just fly out and find planets… I’d kiss as many alien babes as I could.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Of course you would.”

“I would!” Lance insists. “Well at least… I’d try. Let’s be honest I wouldn’t be able to pull anything off with you right there thwarting my efforts.”

“Who said I’d be there with you?”

“You would, wouldn’t you? You’d be too worried to let me go off into space by myself with no one to keep track of me. And besides… I wouldn’t want to go without you…”

Keith is quiet for a moment after that. He reaches over, grabs the bottle of wine, and knocks back a giant mouthful before putting it down, wiping his mouth with the back of his gloved hand. “Me neither. I wouldn’t want to go without you.” He’s quiet when he admits it. Lance wonders if the alcohol was actually necessary or if it was a placebo thing. “Besides, you’d need someone to pilot. Everyone knows you’re shit at it.”

Lance scoffs. “Please. You know what they called me in flight school? They called me The Tailor because of how I thread the needle.”

“I’d call you a hot mess,” Keith smiles wryly at Lance, making eye-contact for the first time since he’d broken the silence of their stargazing.

Lance feels heat pooling in his stomach but tells himself it’s the alcohol and definitely not the intensity of Keith’s purple eyes wandering over his face. Lance takes another drink of wine. “Anyway it’s not really fair for you to judge anyone on piloting skills. Not all of us are ‘born naturals.’” He waves his hands in the air vaguely, using a mocking voice to encompass all of their teachers and superiors in one phrase. “It won’t be long before they pull you for some kind of special project.” Lance raises the bottle to his lips again but Keith grabs it from his hands and takes a drink himself. 

“What, like Voltron?”

“God, I hope not,” if he were less buzzed, Lance would be embarrassed at how raw his voice sounds. “People… people don’t come back from that.”

“I know.”

Lance winces. There’s no mistaking the bitterness in his voice. “Have… Have you heard from him since they pulled him?”

Keith rolls his eyes and passes the bottle back to lance. “You can say his name, Cargo Pilot.” Lance appreciates the attempt to lighten the atmosphere but he doesn’t feel like laughing- or drinking very much anymore for that matter. Bummer.

Keith sighs. “No, I haven’t heard from Shiro. But they haven’t said he’s dead yet either so that’s something at least.”

Lance nods dumbly.

Keith sighs and lays back, one hand supporting his head and the other next to his side, extended a bit towards the space between them. Lance stares at it for a moment before Keith speaks again.

“Hey…”

“Yeah?”

“When this is over… all of it- the war, the Garrison, the special projects… Let’s go to space.”

“Think you’ll still want to after all of this?”

Keith nods. “With you I would. Watching you attempt to flirt with aliens of any and all genders or lack thereof would provide enough entertainment to make it worth it.”

Lance groans and lays back next to him, gaze directed firmly at the stars. “Maybe you’d learn a thing or two about flirting along the way.”

“Maybe. Is that a yes?” 

Lance sees Keith turn towards him from the corner of his eye and makes himself keep looking up; He’d lose his nerve if he made eye contact now. “Yeah,” he edges his hand closer to Keith’s- barely touching but more than close enough to feel the heat radiating off of it. “Yeah, let’s go to space.”

 

Lance isn’t sure how much longer they stayed up on the roof but eventually they made it back to their dorms. The next morning when he wakes up slightly hungover Hunk gives him a vaguely disapproving look but offeres him painkillers and water just the same. He’s honestly the best roommate he could’ve asked for.

He has a test that day, and maybe he should’ve spent more time studying last night and less time thinking about how pretty Keith’s eyes were but he manages to survive. He probably even passed so, needless to say, he’s actually in a fairly good mood when he leaves his classes to return to the dorms for the day. 

Hunk’s waiting for him at the mouth of their hallway, looking wildly uncomfortable and like he’d honestly rather be cleaning the kitchens than doing whatever he’s doing standing there.

“You’ve got a visitor,” Hunk says before he could even say hello.

“A visitor?”

“It’s Keith.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you just say so? Actually what are you doing out here? You guys are friends too, aren’t you?”

Hunk shrugs, though Lance can’t tell what question the action was answering. “I’ve gotta go hit the library. Engineer stuff. Seeya later, Lance.” And then he’s gone.

Lance blinks after him for a moment, wondering at the weirdly tense atmosphere he’s left in, before heading towards his room. The atmosphere only gets heavier as he approaches his door and he hesitates before entering. Surely he’s just being weird right? Nothing’s wrong, Hunk’s odd behavior just set him on edge.

Regardless, Lance finds himself taking a deep breath and holding it as he pushes his door open.

Keith’s sitting at his desk, and for a moment, Lance thinks everything is okay. Then Keith stands up and turns to face him, a sort of awkward attempt at a smile on his face that looks more like a grimace.

Lance takes in his outfit silently, letting the door close behind him and his bag slide off his shoulder to loudly thump on the ground, the only sound in the heavy air of the room.

He’s wearing a uniform. Not the uniform that all Garrison cadets wore, not even the uniform of a fighter pilot. This was a uniform Lance had seen only once before- a uniform that he had hoped never to see again. With a shaky breath he focuses his eyes on the patch just left of Keith’s heart.

Voltron.

He meets Keith’s gaze. He doesn’t try to process the emotions spilling out of his expressive eyes on his otherwise surprisingly calm face.

“When do you leave?” Lance is proud of the fact that it didn’t take him multiple tries to speak; His throat feels dry.

“Tonight.”

Lance closes his eyes, like that can somehow help him to ignore the emotion leaking out of Keith’s voice. How did he manage to convey so much in two slightly shaking syllables? So much and yet not nearly enough and suddenly that’s very concerning to Lance. Keith had never been much of a talker and he’d always been more than fine with that. God knew he could speak enough for both of them. But now he had mere hours and nothing Keith says will ever be enough and yet here he was saying too much in two syllables.

“You’ve known for a while.” Lance opens his eyes and he must have been really out of it because he’s moved further into the room but doesn’t really remember doing it.

Keith bites his lip. “I… suspected. Nothing was concrete until this morning.”

Lance nods. “So you weren’t being a complete dick last night. Just a minor one.”

Keith huffs out a laugh and Lance can’t decide if he had been trying to make a joke or not but Keith laughing was a rare and precious commodity so he’s not going to complain.

“Lance I…”

Lance shakes his head. He hesitates a moment before bringing his hand up to rest on Keith’s chest, his fingers idly stroking over the embroidered letters. 

Voltron.

“You’ll get to see Shiro again.”

A sigh whooshes out of Keith, so heavily Lance wonders if there’s any air left in his body for a moment.

“Yeah… Yeah I will.”

Lance nods. “That’s good. He’ll be happy to see you.”

Keith’s hand comes up and clamps over Lance’s and he freezes. When he looks up Keith is already staring at him, trying to convey something that Lance has never really wanted to name before but he wishes he had because he sure as hell doesn’t want to name it now. 

“Lance,” he says, this time more insistent.

Lance’s throat feels too small, too hot and dry to speak. He makes a small sort of noise in reply but it’s painful even to his ears.

“Lance…”

“You’ll get to see space. You’ll get to see Shiro and space and you’ll meet alien people and learn about flirting and you’ll get to see cool new planets and you’re going to be okay. You are going to be the best pilot anyone on this damned project has ever seen and you’ll be fine.”

Keith’s facial expression suggests that he’s wildly uncomfortable and not entirely sure what to do or say and that’s the first clue that helps him realize that he’s got tears beginning to spill from his eyes.

Lance sniffs and stares at his hand, still in Keith’s grasp and pressed against his chest where he can feel his heart beating.

“You’ll be fine,” he whispers.

“Will you?”

Lance crumples. He leans his head on Keith’s shoulder and he tries to regulate his breathing- tries to stop crying and above all he tries to ignore the fact that this the the closest they’ve ever physically been. It’s the closest they ever will be, physically.

There’s a hand in his hair and one rubbing his back but that only makes things worse, makes him want to press closer but he can’t. He won’t let himself. He had waited too long for this and now Keith was leaving in a few hours and it’s all too much to process at one time.

How can he commit everything to memory? The feeling of Keith’s hand in his hair, the heat radiating off of him, the heartbeat he can feel, strong and remarkably steady under his hand. He inhales deeply, partially to regain control of his breathing and partially to memorize how Keith smells in this moment but he comes up frustrated because all he smells like is his new stupid uniform and the wine they drank only hours before.

Maybe the frustration is what makes him speak. “Have you showered since last night? You smell like wine.” His voice sounds weak.

Keith inhales deeply and for a moment, Lance entertains the thought that maybe Keith’s doing the exact same thing he is.

“No actually. When they called me first thing this morning I thought that maybe I was having some weird hungover dream.”

Lance snorts at that and allows himself to burrow deeper into Keith’s neck. Keith doesn’t say anything to stop him so he settles there for a moment and concentrates. If he really thinks about it he can smell Keith. He smells like nights spent stargazing on the roof in the desert, and stardust, and coffee but he’s not sure if the coffee is a constant thing or a circumstantial thing.

A buzzer on Keith’s belt goes off and Lance feels his insides collapsing like a house of cards, fast and all at once, but painfully quiet and if you weren’t in the room to witness it you wouldn’t know it happened.

Lance straightens as Keith checks the message. He sighs again, less heavily this time but distinctly forced sounding and Lance wonders if he too feels like a flimsy structure made out of playing cards.

“I have to go,” he says.

Lance nods. “Right. I’ll see you… Well… Good luck out there. Give ‘em hell for me.”

Keith smiles, and if Lance didn’t know any better he’d say it looked sad. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

And then he leaves. He makes it halfway down the hall before Lance runs out after him, and really they’re both secretly impressed that he made it that long before calling out to him.

“Keith!”

Keith stops, takes a breath, and turns to look at him. “Yeah, Lance?”

Lance blurts the first thing that comes to his mind. “Your uniform looks good on you.”

Keith blushes and Lance takes as many mental pictures as he can because that is just not playing fair.

“You think so?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a thing for a man in uniform.” He smiles.

Keith smiles back.

Then he leaves.

Lance returns to his room and stands for a moment, breathing in the air deeply and trying not to think about the fact that this is likely the last air he will have ever shared with Keith.

Lance goes back up to the roof that night and stares at the stars. He thinks about how he now has absolutely no idea where Keith is anymore.

He tells himself he’s okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> It's 1 AM right now so I'm sorry if there are typos anywhere. I got halfway through this and decided I wanted to change the tense I was writing in and I may have missed fixing a few spots.
> 
> Anyway, I've never really written anything like this before so criticism is appreciated. I had lots of fun with it though so I may try other stuff like this. Also I have a few notions on how to further this au but nothing concrete yet.
> 
> Umm I'm really tired right now and I know I had like three specific thing I wanted to say here but I really can't think of them right now so I'm gonna go to be. If I remember them I'll edit this but right now I just really need to sleep lol
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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